The flooring at General Electric’s Water & Process Technology Plant in Sydney, Australia, was transformed over the Christmas shutdown period, thanks to an installation of Flowcrete’s polyurethane concrete system Flowfresh HF SR.
The plant at Ingleburn manufactures chemicals, filtration systems and other products related to water processing. Raw chemicals for production are stored in a chemical tank section, an area that is regularly accessed by heavy traffic such as forklifts.
Over the years, the concrete floors had deteriorated badly due to the frequent heavy traffic, compounded by chemical attack, especially under and around the storage tanks. In many areas, the concrete had degraded up to a depth of 20mm.
The specification for the new flooring therefore called for full trafficability, high-grade chemical resistance and good slip resistance. Superior thermal shock resistance was also a requirement in order to withstand the high temperature (85 deg C) cleaning used in the area.
As Tony Di Girolamo, General Manager of Flowcrete Australia comments, “The heavy duty specification automatically ruled out epoxy systems, which are not able to withstand such punishing conditions. We were able to demonstrate that the tough physical properties of our polyurethane concrete system met all the criteria.”
The other requirement was for the work to be completed within the two-week Christmas shutdown period. “This is a tight timeframe but the quick curing time of the Flowfresh system enabled us to comply with this requirement.” Di Girolamo says
The project began with a thorough double degreasing and cleaning of the area, using 90 Deg C, 4000 psi captive hot water blasting, to remove all oils, chemical residues and contaminants from the concrete. This was followed by heavy-duty shot blasting.
The Flowfresh HF SR was laid at 5-6mm, incorporating a higher slip resistance profile in some areas where the majority of liquid/oil spills were more frequent. The perimeters and hobs where tanks were located were also installed with an epoxy mortar coving for ease of cleaning.
Everseal/Flooring Images, one of Flowcrete’s licensed applicators in Australia, carried out the work. The system comes with a guarantee from Flowcrete for a period of 10 years.